Bonnie Prince Billy

There's a lot of damage in the shadows when Angel Olsen says six simple words.

Those words -- "I am the only one now" -- are sung at the conclusion of the first song on her new album, and they're repeated seven times. Her voice goes higher, then lower, alternately crestfallen and then revelatory. Scarred? A little. Heartbroken? That's harder to gauge.

If a love song is inherently egocentric -- I feel something or other because you did something -- then Olsen's new album "Burn Your Fire for No Witness" is about grappling with romance in an era besotted with narcissistic status updates. Self-branding may be the norm, but learning to be truly selfish...

Related "Bonnie Prince Billy" Articles

There's a lot of damage in the shadows when Angel Olsen says six simple words.
Those words -- "I am the only one now" -- are sung at the conclusion of the first song on her new album, and they're repeated seven times. Her voice goes higher, then lower,...

NEW YORK — A single song bookends "Inside Llewyn Davis," the forthcoming film from Joel and Ethan Coen about a week in the life of a struggling singer in the New York folk scene of the early 1960s. It's a gentle guitar ballad starring a dangling noose...